The general public wants to learn bleeding control techniques.

Many civilians have expressed interest in taking a bleeding control training course that would empower them to immediately assist victims of active shooter and other intentional mass casualty events at the point of wounding, according to results of a new national poll published in the Journal of the American College of Surgeons. Furthermore, the vast majority of civilians support training and equipping police officers to perform severe bleeding control on victims as soon as possible rather than wait for emergency medical services (EMS) personnel to arrive on the scene. There’s also strong public support for putting bleeding control kits in public places where large crowds gather, similar to the way that automatic external defibrillators are now found in airports and shopping malls for use by responders who have undergone cardiopulmonary resuscitation training.

In addition to training law enforcement officers in bleeding control and instantly providing them with equipment to do so, emergency medical service personnel also need quicker access to the wounded. However, another key element calls for using civilian bystanders as immediate responders who perform external bleeding control for victims at the point of wounding before the arrival of professional responders. This element from the Hartford Consensus is at the core of the “Stop the Bleed” campaign by the Department of Homeland Security through the National Security Council.

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The 'Stop the Bleed' campaign was initiated by a federal interagency workgroup convened by the National Security Council Staff, The White House. The purpose of the campaign is to build national resilience by better preparing the public to save lives by raising awareness of basic actions to stop life threatening bleeding following everyday emergencies and man-made and natural disasters. Advances made by military medicine and research in hemorrhage control during the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq have informed the work of this initiative which exemplifies translation of knowledge back to the homeland to the benefit of the general public. The Department of the Defense owns the 'Stop the Bleed' logo and phrase – trademark pending.